Phonetics
Main Contents
• Definition and classification of phonetics
• Speech organs
• Consonants: manners of articulation and places of articulation
• Vowels: description
• Assimilation/co-articulation
• Phonetic transcription
• Supra-segmental features
1. Phonetics
• Phonetics is the study of speech sounds; The study of how speech sounds are made/produced, transmitted and received
•Phonetics looks at speech sounds from three distinct but related points of view
• Production perception
• Speaker hearer
transmission
Articulatory Phonetics发音语音学Acoustic Phonetics声学语音学Auditory Phonetics听觉语音学
Articulatory phonetics
From the speaker’s point of view: how a speaker uses his speech organs to produce or articulate the sounds, which results in articulatory phonetics.
From the hearer’s point of view:
how the sounds are perceived by
the hearer, which results in
auditory phonetics.
Auditory Phonetics
From the way sounds travel: how sounds travel by the sound waves, the physical means by which sounds are transmitted through the air from one person to another, which results in acoustic phonetics.
Acoustic phonetics
By studying sound waves with the help of spectrographs(摄谱仪 ), acoustic phoneticians find that the same sounds we claim to have heard are in most cases only phonetically similar, but rarely phonetically identical.
2. Organs of speech
articulatory apparatus
Throatpharyngeal cavity
The oral cavitymouth
Nasal cavitynose
咽腔
口腔 鼻腔
1.lips 2.teeth
3.teeth ridge (alveolar)
4. hard palate 5.soft palate(velum) 6.uvula 7.tip of tongue 8. blade of tongue 9. back of tongue 10.vocal cords 11.pharyngeal cavity 12. Nasal cavity
Vibration of the vocal cords (声带 ) results in a quality of speech sounds called voicing, which is a feature of all vowels and some consonants in English.
E.g. [b, z, d]
Voicing (浊音)
The pharyngeal cavity
When the vocal cords are drawn wide apart, letting air go through without causing vibration, the sounds produced in such a condition are voiceless. E.g. [p, s, t]
Voiceless(清音 )
Vibration of vocal cords
The nasal cavity is connected with the oral cavity. The soft part of the roof of the mouth, the velum, can be drawn back to close the passage so that all air exiting from the lungs can only go through the mouth. The sounds produced in this condition are not nasalized.
The nasal cavity
If the passage is left open to allow air to exit through the nose, the sounds produced are nasalized sounds.
Consonants and Vowels
• Consonants are produced by constructing or obstructing the vocal tract(声道 ) at some place to divert, impede or completely shut off the flow of air in the oral cavity
• Vowels are produced without such obstruction so no turbulence or a total stopping of the air can be perceived
Obstruction of airstream
3. Consonants
Airstream being obstructed in some wayVoicingPlaces of articulationManners of articulation
voiceless: [p] [t] [f] [k] [s]
Voicing
voiced: [b] [d] [v] [g] [z] [m]
Places of articulation• Bilabial (with the two lips): pie/buy/my• Labiodental (with the lower lip and the upper teeth):
five/vie• Dental (with the teeth and tongue tip): think/this• Alveolar ( with the tongue tip and the alveolar ridge:
tie/die/nigh/sigh/zeal/lie• Palato-alveolar/ post-alveolar: shy/treasure/cheat/bridge• Palatal: you• Velar: hack/hag/hang• Retroflex: rye• Glottal: hat
Manners of articulation• Plosive/stop: pie/buy/die/tie/guy /kite (oral)• Nasal : my/nigh/sing• Fricative: five/vie/sigh/zoo/thigh/this/shy/treasure• Approximant: yacht/we/raw• Lateral: lay/ale• Affricate: church/judge
[s] in sing: voiceless, alveolar fricative[N] in sing: voiced, velar, nasal stop
4. Vowels (four criteria) • The height of the body of the tongue: high/mid/low• The front-back position of the tongue: front/central/back
• The degree of lip rounding: un-rounded: see/did/bird
rounded: book/lot
• The length or tenseness of the vowel:
long/ tense: bead book
short/lax: bid putVowel glides:
pure or mono-phthong: be
diphthong: boy/toe
triphthong: tower/wire
5. Co-articulation
• The articulation of sounds are often influenced by their neighbors. The process by which one sound takes on some or all the characteristics of its neighboring sound is called co-articulation or assimilation.
Anticipatory co-articulation: e.g. lamb Perservative co-articulation: map
AssimilationRegressive assimilation
right place [p]
good morning [b]
one cup cf bank [N]
have to [f]Progressive assimilation
cats [s] dogs [z]
Assimilation rules:
Word-final alveolars become dental before dental fricatives;
Word-initial /l/ and /r/ becomes
voiceless after fortis consonants.
Word-final labio-dental
fricatives may become bilabial
before bilabial plosives;
Word-final /l/ is non-velarised if
followed by an initial vowel;
Word-final lenis plosives and
fricatives are not devoiced I followed
by a vowel or voiced consonant;
Word-final /t,d/ become bilabial before bilabial consonants;
Word-final /t,d/ become velar before velar plosives;
Word-final /n/ becomes
bilabial before bilabial
consonants;
Word-final /n/ becomes velar before velar plosives
Word-final /nt,nd/ both
become bilabial before
bilabials and velar before
Velars.
Word-final /s,z/ become palato-alveolar before palato-alveolar fricatives and the palatal frictionless continuant;
Word-final /t,d,s,z/ become palato-alveolar affricates (/t,d/) or fricatives(/s,z/) before /j/ and /j/disappears;
Word-final /d/ becomes a nasal before a nasal, at the place of articulation of the nasal;
Word-final /v/ becomes a nasal before a nasal;
Bilabial and alveolar nasals become labio-dental before labio-dental fricatives;
Word-final lenis fricatives
become fortis before an
initial fortis consonant;
5. Broad and Narrow Transcription
A broad transcription is one that only takes account of the sound differences that are important to distinguish words from each other in a language. A broad transcription is the transcription with letter-symbols only. E.g. [pin] [speid]
A narrow transcription attempts to represent more or less accurately the way in which a particular speaker pronounces his words. A narrow transcription is a transcription with letter symbols together with diacritics(变音符号 ). e. g [phi n] [s p= ei d]
Narrow transcription
The distinction between / ph / and /p/ does not make a difference between words in English. If we substitute /p/ for /ph/ in /phin/, we produce a peculiar pronunciation of pin but not a new word;
But the substitution of p for t does make a difference of word: pin/pin/ and tin/tin/ are different words in English.
6. Suprasegmental Features
• Stress (and rhythm) green house vs. greenhouse
Give it to John.
It was an accident
Intonation
Have you had supper?
He was in an appalling bad temper.
Pitch